19th Carmel Art Festival Narrative

The festival began on Wednesday night with check in and paper stamping at the Carmel Art Association. When they check you in the paper gets a Carmel Art Festival Stamp and date. I have to be careful not to get the fresh ink on the front of the paper.
This year a reception for the artists was added on Wednesday night. I was too anxious to get started, so I left the coast about 5:30 and drove out to Carmel Valley where it remained sunny until 7:15pm.
I painted "Carmel Valley Shadows"  Wednesday night.
 Thursday I started painting at 8:30 am on a ridge top in Carmel Valley. It takes until then for the wind and morning fog to die down. I painted " Valley Vertigo" in the morning, stopped for a quick lunch, then drove inland further and found some shade near a ranch in the Upper Valley. At about the 17 to 19 mile markers the Valley opens up into lovely rolling hills and Valley Oaks.  You can tell I painted "Upper Valley View" in the midday light. It had that mid day effect of the sky value being darker than than the hills.
 I  then drove all the way into the junction of Carmel Valley Rd and Tassajara Rd. I took Tassajara Rd down to Jamesburg which was in a ravine and pretty creepy feeling, but was my adventure for the week. 
There was a hill I have been searching for for three years that I finally saw on the right while driving back at about the 25 mile marker.( It was a painting by Arthur Hill Gilbert that I saw years ago at the Rieser Gallery that has stayed with me as a beautiful hill image). I need to get back to paint it .
 I had had enough of the inland by then ,so I went to the Coast next. Just across from Garrapata State Park there were lovely hills covered with coastal chaparral. Since this is my preferred subject on Mt Diablo I thought it would be fun to try it in the cool coastal light."Coastal Hills " was my final painting for the event.

We had until 8 pm on Friday to enter two paintings in the competition. It is very hard to choose which ones .I probably should have entered "Valley Vertigo" and "Carmel Valley Shadows" but was worried they were too similar. No award this time but two sales (Valley Vertigo and  Carmel Valley Shadows) were reward enough.

We got to replace sold paintings on Sunday and I hung all three remaining paintings, watched the quick draw auction and rewarded myself with 2 hours of driving and walking along the coast from Garrapata to almost Rocky Point.
While I was there, the volunteers sold the second painting for me. The weather cooperated, making this one of the most beautiful settings for a plein air event. The quality of the paintings was very high and I am always in awe of what the other artists paint. There were a lot of new faces this year and some artists from all across the country.

Next year will be the 20th year of the festival and I hope to participate.
 The paintings mentioned in this post are in the next post down.
 Here are the various configurations of my display at the festival:

 Friday night and Saturday

 Sunday Morning

Sunday late afternoon

19th Carmel Art Festival 2012 Paintings

I just got back last night from a great experience at the Carmel Art Festival. The weather was sunny, not too warm, no wind,( and no rain!) so it was like painting in my home location of Mount Diablo.

Valley Vertigo 14 x 11 sold

Carmel Valley Shadows 12 x 12 sold

Upper Valley View 11 x 14

Coastal Hills 12 x 12 ( with a shadow from the easel in the sky) Available Fairmont Gallery Sonoma

I'll give more details on the festival events on Saturday and Sunday, but wanted to share what I painted during the festival for now.

"Hill at Thomas Home Ranch" Save Mount Diablo Donation Painting for Celebration and Art Sale

"Hill at Thomas Home Ranch" watercolor 11 x 16 . My donation to the Save Mount Diablo Celebration and Fund Raiser for the newly acquired Thomas Home Ranch Parcel, on the east side of Mount Diablo where I hardly ever paint. There was a lovely hill next to the ranch and it was one of those days when you could see the hills colors changing from spring to summer as you painted. Here is a link to the web site for more information:
http://www.savemountdiablo.org/downloads/ThomasCelebration.pdf

Update 6/2 SOLD at the Celebration

On Location in Malibu 2012, California Art Club Exhibit at the Frederick R Weisman Museum of Art May 19 – August 4, 2012

Malibu Canyon, 21 x 29. You can click on the  painting  for a larger image.

Opening reception: Saturday, May 19, 5–7 PM

 Sometimes I paint large in the studio, because a large piece of watercolor paper taped to masonite board is just like a very large and heavy sail. 

Malibu Canyon was painted from a photo that I took along Malibu Canyon Drive. It shows my fondness for shapes and colors applied in flat areas and arranged to create volume. In Southern California the hills show their structure because there is not as much vegetation covering them.

 The color in this is largely from memory since the photo greys everything out. This is my fantasy of a view I would like to have from a window some day. Another influence here is a magical phrase from a fairy tale that a princess's dress was skybluepink. I remember puzzling over this phrase as a child and trying to imagine what that would be, this looked like a skybluepink hill to me.

I am thrilled to be exhibiting in On Location in Malibu for the second time. The Juror was Museum Director Michael Zakian. 

The roster of artists(!) my painting gets to hang out with:

Peter Adams, Lisa Bloomingdale Bell, Gerald Brommer, John Brunnick, Marcia Burtt, Cathey Cadieux, John Cosby, Jose De Juan, Karl Dempwolf, Esther Engelman, Mark Fehlman, David Gallup, Lynn Gertenbach, Adrian Gottlieb, Robin Hall, Carolyn Hesse-Low, Keewon Hong, Jeffrey Horn, Virginia Johnstone, Sharon Burkett Kaiser, Laurie Kersey, Chuck Kovacic, Peggi Kroll-Roberts, Frank Lennartz, Calvin Liang, Jeremy Lipking, Bobbie Moline-Kramer, Taylor Montague, Jennifer Moses, Michael Obermeyer, Barron Postmus, Scott W. Prior, Tony Pro, Richard Probert, Robin Purcell, Gerald Rahm, Jeff Richards, Vic Riesau, Rodolfo Rivademar, Ray Roberts, Junn Roca, Gayle Roski, Frank Serrano, Herb Seymour, Liliana Simanton, Michael Situ, Christopher Slatoff, Tim Solliday, Alexey Steele, Yisun Wei, Ryan Wurmser, Jeff Yeomans, Joan Horsfall Young, Dennis Ziemienski, and Charles Zlatkoff.  

http://www.californiaartclub.org/on-location-in-malibu-2012/

Here is a link to the paintings from the 2009 exhibit: http://robinpurcellpaints.blogspot.com/2009/06/on-location-in-malibu-california-art.html

Mount Diablo Springtime

Diablo Springtime 14 x 14

This started out a while ago as a class demo and I missed posting it at the time. Since we are finally getting some gorgeous greens, I thought it would be fun to post now. This was painted from a summer version of this same place in Lafayette called " Northern View. "

Plein Air Spring Training : two small ones on my easel now

 Wine Country Wind Break 9 x 12 Available Fairmont Gallery Sonoma

Spring Barn 11 x 14 Available Fairmont Gallery Sonoma

We've had some rain and the land is starting to green up. These paintings may be finished ,I am not quite sure.
It was great to get out of the studio and paint in the fresh air. The top " Wine Country Windbreak" was painted in a hidden valley on the way to the Livermore wine country. I was next to a horse pasture and got to watch the horses and bluebirds and hawks perched in the trees. "Spring Barn" attracted me because of the quality of the reflected light on the barn. These aren't great photos and I will try to get better ones.